Teaching Kids About the Trinity (Children's Catechism Questions 6-8)
Today we'll be covering Questions and Answers 6, 7, and 8 from the Children's Catechism:
Q. 6. Are there more gods than one?
A. There is only one God.
Q. 7. In how many persons does this one God exist?
A. In three persons.
Q. 8. What are they?
A. The Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
This post is in a series of posts working through the Children's Catechism! For more information on how this started, be sure to read the beginning of this earlier post. My kids I'm working on this with are 6, 4, and almost 2.
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The Trinity can be some confusing stuff for Christians of all ages. It may be tempting to search Pinterest for some illustrations of things from your kitchen you can relate to the Trinity (you know - water, eggs, apples, whatever) ; but realistically, they will all fail you for one reason or another and can lead to a wrong view of the Trinity. To see a quick overview from Monergism.com of a bunch of different heresies concerning the Trinity, you can click here. It's much better to stick to Scripture and the descriptions from the catechisms.
On that note, before you jump into teaching your littles, I thought it would be a good edifying opportunity for us to review the catechism questions, answers, and proof texts from which the children's catechism is derived. I've included all the proof texts and just selected a few to write out but you can easily click on the others and they should pop open in a new window.
Westminster Larger Catechism on the Trinity:
Q. 8. Are there more Gods than one?
A. There is but one only, the living and true God.
Deut 6:4: “Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. (ESV); 1 Cor. 8:4, 6; Jer. 10:10
Q. 9. How many persons are there in the Godhead?
A. There be three persons in the Godhead, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost: and these three are one true, eternal God, the same in substance, equal in power and glory; although distinguished by their personal properties.
Matt. 28:19: Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. (ESV); 1 John 5:7; Matt. 3:16-17; 2 Cor. 13:14; John 10:30
Q. 10. What are the personal properties of the three persons in the Godhead?
A. It is proper to the Father to beget the Son, and to the Son to be begotten of the Father, and to the Holy Ghost to proceed from the Father and the Son from all eternity.
Heb. 1:5-6, 8; John 1:14, 18; John 15:26; Gal. 4:6.
Q. 11. How doth it appear that the Son and the Holy Ghost are God equal with the Father?
A. The Scriptures manifest that the Son and the Holy Ghost are God equal with the Father, ascribing unto them such names, attributes, works, and worship, as are proper to God only.
Isa. 6:3, 5, 8; John 12:41; Acts 28:25; 1 John 5:20; Acts 5:3-4; John 1:1; Isa. 9:6; John 2:24-25; 1 Cor. 2:10-11; Col. 1:16; Gen. 1:2;Matt. 28:19; 2 Cor. 13:14.
The Westminster Shorter Catechism on the Trinity:
Q. 5. Are there more Gods than one?
A. There is but one only, the living and true God.
Q. 6. How many persons are there in the Godhead?
A. There are three persons in the Godhead; the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost; and these three are one God, the same in substance, equal in power and glory.
This is also a good reminder to explain to your kids that it is because we are human that we can't understand everything about God. And that's a good thing because God is so different from us!
Now, on to what we did for our simple lesson!
First, we read Chapter 2 (which is one page in length) from Marty Machowski's The Ology on the topic of the Trinity. This was very helpful and practical for kids quickly breaking down a complex concept! If you want to teach theology to your kids but aren't sure where to start, start with this Scripture-rich book to easily weave theological truths into your story time.
We talked about the Trinity after our reading. We discussed and practiced the Children's Catechism questions 6, 7, and 8. If you've been listening to the Children's Catechism songs, that will help and your kids might already know the answers!
After that, we worked on a Trinity worksheet I created. My 4 year old is really determined to get his handwriting down, so I created this with some simple tracing and spots for copy work. He also happened to be having a hard time remembering the answers so it was good repetition to keep saying "One God" and "Three Persons". That made memorizing the answers easier when we reviewed them again.
The worksheet also contains some simple coloring of circles to work on counting up to the number three, so I used that with my almost 2 year old. My six year old also liked decorating each circle with many different colors. I like worksheets that I can print one copy of and use with all my kids, the older kids can just add more detail on something that is simple for the younger ones. And I'm happy to share the very simple free printable with you if you want to use it with your kids! Just click here to access it in the Resource Library! Let me know what you think!
As usual, we also put some music on to review the questions one more way. We listened to Question 6, 7, and 8 (two songs total) from Ask Me Whooo, Volume 1 and the really fun Is there More than One True God? from the Family Devo album.
That's all for today! If you found it helpful, be sure to share it using the buttons below!
For a list of all the best catechism resources, be sure to check out this page.